Keep on Running

He had only been in the bathroom for a few minutes. The time it takes to empty his bladder and clean yogurt from his body. So when he walked back into the bedroom he was surprised to see Stephanie holding a telephone to her ear and dialling a number.

Acrylic nails tapped impatiently across the bedside table as he gathered his clothes from the floor, sitting on the end of the bed and glancing at his watch, wondering who she was ringing at this time in the morning.

"Ronnie is that you?" she barked into the phone..."I thought you ought to know that I've just been fucked to death by a handsome young man with a massive cock," she snapped, the crippling silence at the other end of the phone giving her enough time to add a few crude remarks into the mouthpiece. "And this time I didn't have to fake an orgasm," she laughed, a trace of hurtful scorn in her voice.

The cold chill of nausea suddenly fed his panic, his head spinning in turmoil, the knots of dread tightening inside his stomach, his heart banging like a drum inside his chest, his urgency to get dressed increasing by the second, the violent threats of a maniac echoing through the earpiece, the reckless calm of a bitter woman telling him to 'go fuck himself,' a vulgar finger gesture accompanied by a blast of crude remarks spilling like acid off her tongue as she dropped the phone into the cradle.

"Fucking arsehole," she laughed, falling flat on the bed. "That'll teach the bastard."

He wanted to tell her what he thought about her verbal assault on a man who she had earlier referred to as a violent maniac, but the lack of intuitive rational that panic sometimes induces left him stammering in helpless retreat.

"Where...Where does he live?" he nervously stammered.

"In Gosforth...Not far from here...About a mile," she casually replied.

"In Gosforth...A fucking mile away," he repeated, choking back a lump in his throat, the fear of a confrontation with a violent maniac getting him to his feet.

It was time to go.

Pulling his pants up with one hand and buttoned his shirt with the other, slipping into his shoes without tying the laces, walking towards the bed, questions forming at the back of his throat, a deep intake of breath, a finger pointing accusingly at the telephone.

"What the fuck was that all about?" he barked, giving her a look he reserved for fools. "What the fuck were you thinking about calling him at this time in the morning just to tell him you were getting fucked?"

A head plagued with chaotic confusion, the sound of a car engine in the street below forcing him into nervous recoil, his mouth dry, searching for answers, clearing a lump in his throat.

"I could hear him shouting down the telephone...What did he say to you?"

A bitter and scornful woman forced a thin smile, flashed her eyes and spoke with shameless ease..."Ronnie said he's going to kill you."

The room was still reverberating with echoes of threat as he left the apartment, his stomach and bowels churning, his breathing erratic, his increasing heart beat showing all the signs of an impending heart attack, the car tyres screeching across tarmac, driving through the anger and fatigue, speeding away from another crazy woman.